"Well done," Pope Benedict XVI told Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as she handed him a copy of the law she recently signed outlawing the death penalty in the Philippines.

At the end of a June 26 meeting with the pope, Arroyo gave the pope a statue of Our Lady of Guidance and a copy of the law in a leather case, telling him, "These are two expressions of the faith of the Filipino people."

After the pope gave her some medals, she spent a couple of moments digging in her purse before pulling out her rosary and asking Pope Benedict to bless it.

Earlier June 26 in Manila, Philippines, members of the opposition parties filed an impeachment complaint against Arroyo in the House of Representatives, alleging that she has condoned political killings and violated the constitution to silence dissent. She and her supporters deny the charges.

The pope and Arroyo spent about 20 minutes speaking privately before the president presented the members of her entourage, including her son, daughter-in-law and baby granddaughter.

A Vatican statement on the meeting said the president discussed with the pope the abolition of the death penalty, a bill she signed June 24 before leaving for Rome.

In addition to banning capital sentences in the future, the law changes the death sentences of about 1,000 prisoners to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Signing the bill, Arroyo said, "We celebrate life in its most meaningful way, by gathering our institutions together to repeal the death penalty law."

She also thanked Congress for "expressing the moral and spiritual force" of the Filipino people.

The Vatican statement said the pope and Arroyo also discussed efforts under way to reform the Philippine Constitution, "paying special attention to the poorest sectors of the population," to Christian-Muslim dialogue in the country and to efforts to reflect Christian values in the nation's laws.

After Pope Benedict welcomed Arroyo into the papal library, he asked her if she had ever been there previously.

"Three times," she responded: once as a teenager in 1964 when her father, President Diosdado Macapagal, met Pope Paul VI; during her 1998-2001 term as vice president of the Philippines; and in 2003 as president.

After her meeting with the pope, she spent about half an hour meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, and then went into St. Peter's Basilica to pray in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and at the tomb of Pope John Paul II.

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